Tag Archives: business model

The good people over at CIO have put together an absolutely wonderful guide for web entrepreneurs! (I highly recommend a subscription…or at least a bookmark…it makes sense out of the utterly baffling. I love it.)

“The genesis for this is are the economic times we’re in,” Guy Kawasaki said. “The old days of starting a company by going to investors and giving a PowerPoint presentation — and then getting $2 million — are over.”

What they do: Allow users to make online forms with no HTML experience. They can create forms that help people register for a website, workshop or mailing list. As people respond and fill out the forms, users can measure their responses by running reports and viewing charts.

Quote from co-founder Kevin Hale: “We don’t just strive to collect information, but analyze it as well. [With no coding experience necessary], it’s for secretaries who want to avoid the IT department.”

Where they got funding: Hale says they were initially funded by Y Combinator (a venture capital firm that gives small funding rounds, usually of $20,000 or less, to companies in their infancy).

Business Model: Free for individuals; charge fees for groups and businesses.

What they do: A Web-based portal that allows you to access your computers or network devices from anywhere, without the cumbersome process of setting up remote desktop capabilities.

Quote from founder, Ryo Koyama: “Our view is that everyone knows how to use a Web browser. So there is no reason all your data shouldn’t be accessible from the Web. Setting up a remote desktop tends to be a more complicated thing.”

Where they got funding: According Koyama, they launched the product with their own resources before receiving funding.

What they do: Dropbox allows you to synch and share your files online. One of the upsides to the service is that any change or update you make to a file, it is updated across all your devices that access it. It also has good version control, allowing you to “undelete” files.

Quote from founder Drew Houston: (Referencing Dropbox’s sophisticated version control): “It’s almost like a time machine that works across all platforms.”

Where they got funding: $15,000 from Y Combinator. They later received funding from Sequoia Capital.

Business model: 2 GB free to users; they charge for additional storage.

What they do: Pronounced “discuss,” Disqus allows users to track the comment threads they participate in, on websites across the Web, all in one central area.

Quote from cofounder Jason Yan: “With Disqus, immediately, I see all the comments I’ve left across websites and I can see when other people replied to [my comment] without having to check out each individual website all the time.”

Where they got funding: $15,000 from Y Combinator.

Business model : Get money from publishers/media companies looking to use the service for their entire sites.

What they do: The service allows users to publish blog posts by simply typing them in to their favorite e-mail service, such as Gmail. It also takes links that were pasted into the email and makes them come alive in the blog post (as an example, a video link posted into an email would appear in its full video form in the blog post).

Quote from cofounder Garry Tan: We can take a link that is worthless [and make it] more intelligent. The user doesn’t need to know how to embed code.”

Where they got funding: $15,000 from Y Combinator

Business Model: Free for individuals. Premium subscription model in the works.

What they do: They measure how much time users spend on the Web, on either a website or application. While it sounds a bit Big Brother like, it’s really for users to determine how productive they’re being on a daily basis (how much time did you spend in email yesterday?). It does offer organizations a management view to see organizational behavior, but individual users’ identities are protected.

Quote from cofounder Tony Wright: “It’s not a micro-manager tool. We offer a categorized view of how you [and your organization] is spending time. That allows you to be more efficient.”

Where they got funding: Wright didn’t specify amount, but it was from Y Combinator, so likely under $20,000.